A Florida man was arrested in Texas after authorities were alerted to an alleged “mass casualty” plot targeting Elon Musk's Tesla Cybertruck delivery event.
(Video: WVUE)
On Wednesday, Paul Ryan Overeem, 28, of Orlando, Florida, was arrested in Austin, Texas and charged with making a terroristic threat, a third-degree felony, after he allegedly planned to attack Tesla's Texas Gigafactory and CEO Musk . According to the arrest affidavit revised by CBS Austin, it was the man's social media activity that had alerted the electric car maker and led to the aversion to the alleged plot.
“But I sure am crazy,” and “If I say I'm going to kill people, you should take it seriously,” were just some of the Instagram posts attributed to the suspect that led Tesla's senior director of security operations to file a report of suspicious activity in early November.
Chatting under the name “ufotnoitalumis”, the suspect was said to have sent the messages on November 9 in a private chat. Aware of the apparent threats, Tesla notified authorities who served a subpoena on Instagram allowing the Travis County Sheriff's Office to investigate the threats.
“But yes, like that [sic] Tesla event I plan to attach [sic] So it's up to you to stop me,” said one message while another said: “I plan to kill people even [sic] OK [sic] November 30th and I'd like you to do something about it so I don't have to.”
“I need to be arrested,” the suspect urged as he reportedly blamed technology for his problems, “I want to die. My thoughts have not been free for over a year. All the electronics that surround”.
Travis County Sheriff's Detective Jennifer Boland indicated that the statements amount to the suspect's potential to “carry out his threats of a mass casualty event.”
The Instagram subpoena allowed authorities to obtain a cell phone number associated with the account, and that phone pinged Austin on Wednesday. Law enforcement arrested Overeem after locating his truck, and he reportedly told officers he had guns in his car, though a sheriff's spokesman would not say whether that was true and that he intended to to end his own life after continuing his plot. .
“I was going to shoot Elon Musk and the plant,” the suspect said, allegedly believing that tech entrepreneur and Neuralink co-founder Shivon Zilis had been monitoring him through cameras.
“A lot of people don't realize how much their cell phones are giving them away,” Texas attorney Adam Muery told KVUE. “I mean, usually, like if you're with AT&T, they have your GPS location every 30 seconds. And because they can, most people don't realize it, but you can go back and see everywhere somebody's been.”
Theron Jenkins, whose son worked at Thursday's dedication ceremony, expressed concern about the threats, telling KVUE, “When you hear things like that, you think, are my kids safe? It's really scary. It's really , very scary. And I pray for that every day.”
Overeem was being held on $300,000 bond and was scheduled to appear in court on December 11.
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you're sick of letting radical tech execs, bogus fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals, and the lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news, consider donating to BPR to help us fight back them. Now is the time. The truth has never been more critical!
Success! Thanks for donating. Please share BPR content to help fight lies.
We have zero tolerance for comments that contain violence, racism, profanity, profanity, doxing, or rude behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it, click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for engaging with us in a fruitful conversation.
English 
Español de Venezuela 